


guilty pleasures (skew the dataset)

by hitlikehammers



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Cravings, F/M, M/M, Multi, Other, Polyamory, Pregnancy, Romance, Snacks & Snack Food, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-10
Updated: 2014-01-10
Packaged: 2018-01-08 06:42:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1129532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitlikehammers/pseuds/hitlikehammers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Shortly after the bump started showing, and her ankles started swelling, and she had to switch to the comfy shoes over the cute ones, Mary's willpower ran away.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>No. <span class="u">Really</span>.</i></p><p> <br/>Featuring: John making unorthodox deductions, Sherlock meticulously recording all vital child-bearing data as a means of demonstrating his affection, and the pesky cravings of a pregnant Mary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	guilty pleasures (skew the dataset)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snogandagrope](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snogandagrope/gifts).



> For [snogandagrope](http://archiveofourown.org/users/snogandagrope/profile), who wanted something about comfort food, and specified KFC among her favorites, which can be found not _too_ far from Baker Street. So: Mary. Cravings. So much fucking ridiculous fluff.
> 
> Have at it, darling. Thank you for cheering me up, in the attempt to cheer _you_ up  <3

She doesn’t mean to stop on the way home.

No, really. She doesn’t.

But shortly after the bump started showing, and her ankles started swelling, and she had to switch to the comfy shoes over the cute ones, her willpower ran away.

No. _Really_.

And it’s just a little thing. Just a nibble, really. They always eat so _late_ after all, and her boys had a case as of her departure for work that morning. And lunch, lunch was _ages_ ago.

And truthfully?

The subtle crunch of a bona fide Original Recipe wing is fucking _heavenly_ on her tongue. Better than ice cream. Better than sex.

Her libido’s a bit shit these days, though, so that’s probably the pregnancy talking.

There’s that gorgeous, terrifying, fluttery feeling in her middle, again, and she grins, rubs the swell of her stomach just a bit.

“You agree, don’t you, my sweet?” she asks the growing person in her belly. “Nothing beats a little KFC.”

___________________________

 

John had asked her once—just once—if she thought Sherlock was genuinely pleased about the baby.

Mary had laughed at him, and directed his attention to the various charts on the walls, all but covering the lingering bullet-holes beneath, tracking Mary’s weight gain, abdominal circumference, sleep trends, bladder habits, aches and complaints, which meals agreed and disagreed with her and how (in embarrassing detail), and every ultrasound still he could get his hands on—ones even Mary hadn’t seen, bless the elder Holmes and his creepy prying.

John didn’t question the honesty of Sherlock’s enthusiasm—or, at the very least: his academic interest, which may well prove preferable, given the givens—again. 

 

___________________________

 

In case she ever forgets: the stairs.

The stairs up to the flat, and the fact that they’re a fucking trial at this point, are a constant reminder that she is, in fact, with child, and she is, in fact, on her way to mimicking a zeppelin.

“Hello, love,” she pecks Sherlock on the cheek with a huff as he opens the door: she’d never doubted he was a good man, not like some people had on first meeting the man, but it’d come as a surprise how considerate he could be; how quietly affectionate.

“Dinner’s in the kitchen,” he smiles at her, taking her coat.

“Oh!” she frowns. It’s too early for dinner, she’s only just got home. “What service,” she turns her expression to a playful smirk as he grabs for her bag and hangs that, too.

“You didn’t sleep well, last night,” Sherlock informs her, as if she didn’t know. “Bloating,” she rolls her eyes, doesn’t even blush anymore at his attention to her every harrumph and hiccough. “I suspect it was the fettuccine,” he says; “Angelo will be heartbroken.”

“Right,” Mary nods; “so...”

“Monkey & Me,” John calls, takeaway containers in hand as he forks them onto plates: fancy, goodness, and she feels just a little bit guilty for the snack, now, because she’s not hungry again yet (oh, give her time: an hour, at most), but they’ve put forth so much _effort_ : “According to the brainiac,” John grins in Sherlock’s direction, “you’ve slept best after Thai, ninety...”

He glances toward Sherlock to take over the statistics, and gets an eye-roll and a sigh in response.

“Ninety-seven point five three percent of the time,” Sherlock rescues him. “Placing it neatly at the top of the list to ensure a quality night’s rest this evening.”

Sherlock pulls out her chair and waits for her to take a seat.

Sherlock _pulls out her chair_. Dear lord.

“Fuck me,” Mary huffs. “Have I been a monster, lately?” She points to the plates set before them both. “You two have got curries, but you’ve gone and bought me Gai Yang.”

Lovely, steaming, tempting, delicious Gai Yang.

Oh, give her _half_ an hour, at most.

“You’re fighting a bit of a head cold,” Sherlock relates it as fact, and it is not even until that very moment that Mary realises how stuffy her nose actually is. “Spices will clear your sinuses.”

Oh, god. They’re perfect, aren’t they? She’s got a perfect husband and a perfect not-husband-partner-man and they’re lovely and adorable and they’re feeding her Thai.

Thai which she stares at for a good long while, ignoring the fullness in her stomach and the flutter that is not gorgeous, or terrifying, or made by her baby, but instead comes from her actual digestive system and tells her, quite clearly, _Don’t you fucking touch more food just yet, lest you come to regret it—cravings be damned_.

But her _willpower_ , she thinks.

It ran _away_.

And Gai _Yang_.

“Mary.” Her name snaps her back to the present, where two sets of concerned eyes, sat in front of two empty plates, are fixed upon her. Damn, she must have been musing quite a while: Sherlock is the slowest eater in the history of the human race.

“Are you alright?” John asks.

“Fine, loves,” she smiles at them, and wonders _Half an hour? Has it been half an hour yet?_. “Why?”

“You aren’t eating,” Sherlock nods to her untouched meal. “It’s your favourite.”

“Sherlock, I’m fine,” she grabs for his hand, because he’s such a nervous one, so protective, and who’d have thought? “Promise, I’m just, I’m not hungry yet,” she glances at the clock, and fuck, no, it’s only been fifteen minutes. Must have been small servings her boys took from the trays. “It’s early for dinner.”

John looks ready to let it go, but Sherlock.

 _Sherlock_.

“You’re always hungry when you come home, now,” Sherlock presses her. “Always early, you have to snack if we eat too late—”

Sherlock stops short, eyes narrowing, as he sizes her up.

She’s been had.

“Oh,” John’s grin is slow to spread, but his eyes light up as he realises precisely what Sherlock’s figured. “Oh, he’s caught you out now, hasn’t he?”

“You’ve stopped for a treat, haven’t you?” The degree to which he is appalled by this truth is nearly laughable.

“It smelled _delightful_ ,” Mary argues with a grin, “you can’t even blame me.”

“Mary, we’ve discussed this,” Sherlock sighs, leaning back in his chair with a humph. “How I am supposed to keep track of your physical well-being if I don’t know precisely what your diet consists of? I tell John often enough: I’m a genius, not a mindreader.”

“I was _starving_ ,” Mary protests, whines just a bit, which she knows is cruel, really, because it gets Sherlock every. Single. _Time_.

She watches the edges of his displeasure melt away before he exhales slow, looks at her with just a haze of frustration, so much more of the affection she’s come to genuinely crave from him.

“Right,” he says, and it comes out like an honest fucking lament: “What was it?”

She blinks at him, doe-eyed, because she’s willing to bet this is a wonderful opportunity to fuck with the great Sherlock Holmes that’s waltzing into her lap just now, and she’s pregnant: don’t fucking judge her.

“What did you have?” Sherlock elaborates, impatient.

She grins. Oh _yes_.

“Can’t you tell?” she asks innocent, and wants to squeal a bit at the exact pitch of the frown that curves his lips.

“Excuse me?”

“Sherlock, you’ve been deducing what meals I don’t eat in front of you since you out-stripped my pregnancy test,” Mary points out lovingly, but sly. “You had the first dataset including my _wedding cake_ ,” she quirks an eyebrow: a challenge: “Can’t you tell where I stopped for a bite?”

Sherlock gapes at her for a long moment, but she can pinpoint when the gears start turning, when she becomes evidence more than anything. It takes him just a few deep breaths before his expression scrunches and he spits with disdain.

“ _Comfort food_.”

Mary giggles joyfully, applauding him half mockingly, half truthfully impressed—that was quick, and Sherlock’s wretched with that sort of thing, doesn’t “do” convenience food.

“The stench of grease is nauseating,” Sherlock sniffs, and John laughs behind Mary before he grabs at her Gai Yang to put it away for later.

“You’re a posh fucking prat, you know that?” John tells him with a smile as he leans around Sherlock to take his plate, leaving a wet kiss on Sherlock’s neck to soften the jab with all the fondness they have here, between them all.

“So what’d I get?” Mary needles, because she can.

“I am thrilled to say I have no idea,” Sherlock shoots back.

“It’s not nearly as bad as you think it is, you know,” Mary smirks. “Quite tasty, really,” and she theatrically licks her lips, and then her fingers, just for show.

Just because if Sherlock’s shown an interest in anything like that with consistency, there’s something like a ninety-seven point five three percent likelihood he enjoys her mouth.

The flush on those cheekbones confirms her suspicions.

“So the great detective’s giving up?” John asks, and Sherlock scowls.

“Let me help you, love,” John says indulgently with a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder as he leans in and captures Mary’s mouth.

Mmm, curry. She could go for some curry.

John pulls away, pondering.

“Hmm,” he crosses his arms and chews on his lip. “Tastes rich. Salty.” He blinks five times.

“Oh, of course you did!” he finally hits on it. “You got fried chicken.”

“Guilty pleasure,” Mary admits, puts her hands up in defeat. “Well spotted.”

“Should have picked us up some,” John tells her; Sherlock’s aversions meant chicken nights are few and far between.

“Well,” Mary starts, but doesn’t get a chance to finish, because a pair of plush, eager lips are on her own; a tongue’s slipping into her mouth and tasting, tasting, _tasting_.

Oh, she was so very, very right about Sherlock’s thing for her mouth.

When he pulls back, Mary’s a bit breathless, and John’s pupils are pitch-black and splayed wide. Sherlock’s mouth is parted, just a hair, and a bit redder than usual: divine.

“Hmm,” he murmurs, licks at his already-slick lips. “Acceptable.”

Mary looks at him with a question in her eyes. He smiles shrewdly.

“The chicken,” he says. “Do bring some home, next time.”

Mary laughs: snarky fuck—god, how she adores him.

There’s that gorgeous, terrifying, fluttery feeling in her middle, again.

 _You agree, don’t you, my sweet?_ she thinks with a smile that stretches her face with a pleasant sort of ache: _You adore him, too._


End file.
